Ship Roles, Tactics & Desgin Principles - A Construction Guide

Taorec

Note: This is a discussion about building the most efficient ship possible, it doesn't have to look good just be the most bang for its buck. Following the guide you will likely beat the bounty mode ships with ease as these are designed with flaws in mind.

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Roles & Tactics

When I tried to design ships I noticed that I build most in four different ways.

1. Frontside Ships

Frontside vessel mount most of their weapons at the prow.

Favoured weapons: Cannons, eBolts and lasers, possibly ion beams and side mounted missiles

Strengths: All weapons and shields face forward, giving it tremendous firepower, able to chew through everything in it´s prize class. Generally fast as most engines face backwards and mount cannons, lasers and eBolts.

Weaknesses: Forward facing shields leave it open to attacks from the sides and rear though, having only little armor to protect the inside. While you can somewhat rotate the ships to distribute incoming fire on shields it is far less effective than on broadside desgins.

2. Broadside Ships
Broadside vessels mount two or more (like cubes) of their sides with weapons.

Favoured weapons: Cannons, eBolts and lasers

Strengths: They are armored and shielded all around, making them tough opponents and much better against multiple small targets or in fleet actions. They can rotate the ship so that incoming fire is absorbed by shields and gives them time to regenerate.

Weaknesses: Compared to frontal assault ships they have fewer weapons on each side, leaving salvos smaller. Eninges are crucial weak points as once the ship stops rotating it can be taken down quicker.

3. Diagonal Ships (by Ohm)
Diagonal vessels have weapons on their sides and no frontside. They can be used as both frontside and broadside vessels.

Favoured weapons: Cannons, eBolts and lasers (missiles)

Strengths: When angled right they can fire with cannons and lasers on both sides. Their shields provide better coverage to weapons behind using not only the front but also the side parts.

Weaknesses: If the nose comes under heavy fire and they need to turn they can only bring one broadside to bear. They are also more difficult to construct and the AI doesn't handle them very well, making manual alignment necessary.

Diagonal Ship by Ohm

4. Ranged Vessels

Favoured weapons: Ion beams and missiles ( I found that large cannons are too unreliable in hitting as the projectile is quite slow)

Strengths: These fast ships constantly stay at maximum distance so as not to get caught by large pursuers. They can carry large amounts of missiles to overwhelm PD or use their ion beams on an enemy unable to fire back.

Weaknesses: If the vessel get caught they are toast because they are only lightly armored due to mass constraints.

5. Fighter swarms (& hopefully carriers sometime)

Favoured weapons: Ion beams (AI is very good at using those and staying at max distance); Cannons, eBolts and lasers for melee ships

Strengths: Multiple smaller ships are extremely effective as the can surround targets and prey on their weaknesses better. They are fast and while not the toughest opponents can kill most larger vessels when facing an equally costly combatant.

Weaknesses: Defences are likely to be lackluster especially against front, broadside ships and missiles.

Design Principles

There is a difference in priorities between designing small ships (<200k), medium ships and large ships (> 1kk). The larger the ship the less you want to place reactors near the outside and have to resort to storage and conveyors.

Weapons

For a review of weapons you can look here. Link

Ammo to Weapon Ratio

Energy weapons: Lasers need 1/6, eBolts 1/3 and Ion beams 5/6 of a reactor to work continuously. Make sure there are enough.
Medium cannons: The optimal ratio is 3:2 factories but 2:1 is still good. Keep Minimize walk ways in mind!
Large cannons have a 3:4 factories ratio but their DPS only drops by ~10% with 1:1.
For missiles 2:1 factories is practical, maybe less depending on walk time. While a 1:1 ratio would be optimal, the high cost of factories makes missile storage a good substitute for volley fire (i.e. 8 missiles, 4 factories & 4 storage facilities means a volley every ~14 seconds.) If the ship is used by AI a 1:1 ratio is best for continuous missile spam (though it is not very cost effective doing so.)

Ship Optimization
While iterating through ship designs I noticed things that made my ships a lot tougher:

Armoring: Stopping those pesky cannons from eating your ships innards is a good way to design your ship. It is noteworthy that weapons also stop cannon penetration. You don't always need full blocks everywhere but even a half block or a triangle can absorb some hit and weighs much less. Armor weighs 3x as much as a normal section of the ship.
Center of Mass: For the rotation of the ship it is important that all parts are as close to the center as possible and the engines as far away as possible. (see Role 5, ion swarm ship)
Crew Quarters: Try to place them where the are needed (i.e. near reactors, storage and factories), so they can immediatly leap into action. A long delay can lead to ammo shortages and shield failures!
Corridors are important so the passages don't get congested. If crew walks through rooms or other people, they do so at 1/2 the speed, if both at 1/4. Although I dislike wasting space, two way corridors can heavily improve traffic flow.
Minimize walk ways: This is as important for weapons as for shields. Ditch your ammo storage and replace it with factories. They have to be directly connected to the cannons or the DPS will drop by 30-50% if they are 1 or 2 corridors away! For small ships place power plants directly connected to shields and they will charge at a tremendous rate. Larger ships can do this with power storage.
Shield Armoring: putting armor in front of the shield generator protects the shield even when it goes down and recharges for a while. This makes the ship much more durable. It may not always be possible but generally it´s advisable. (see Role 2, Broadside Vessel)

Shield Overlapping: Getting shields to overlap weapons is the most efficient way to protect your DPS. Generally, I found that two or three overlapping shields are best as more can get different to lay out or costly. (see Role 2, Broadside Vessel)

Construction Tips

Mirror mode is your friend. It makes construction much faster.
Use the tool (T) to move or copy sections of your ship.
Plan your sections out beforehand. It helps me to create examples of what i want to do (like how to lay out weapon positions then shield & armor them and see if it is workable) then copy the sections into my ship.

Conclusion

While no ship can be perfect in every way it is good to keep ship roles and desgin principles in mind.

What are your opinions? Have you found other roles or principles? Do you have tips for your fellow star ship builders?

SpaceArchitect

Taorec That´s what I found too. Shields and PD counter missiles pretty hard. I had a 825k missile tender fire at a 165k PD frigate (see pictures below) and the 150 missiles did very littile damage.

I suspect this is because of the heavy nerf to missile weapons. When they were first out they had more range and PD's had less success so a barrage of missiles could overwhelm them but now their certainly a lot more efficient to the point of being a little too good.

Course, bigger ships can fire enough of a barrage to get through, sometimes fireing missiles around the ship to hit potentially less protected parts, especially on budget designs.

Taorec Shield Armoring: putting armor in front of the shield generator protects the shield even when it goes down

I have done this before but is it really worthwhile or effective to do so? The thing is, the shields on most designs I see are behind the weapons protecting them which means you may as well lose that compartment on the ship if the weapons are already gone. When I say "compartment" i mean I usually armour in specific weapon batteries so fires and broken weapon batteries do not become a weakness or hazard to the others.

Course shied arms (like Cerberus) can enjoy some armoring I guess since that is mostly why their there, to take fire. But I would not use armour on shields unless I had no budget constraints.

Ohm

Taorec I actually like this guide. Even without multiplayer/pvp, this sort of information would help steer new players towards workable designs as well as teach them some basic design techniques.

As for roles and tactics, you forgot about diagonal designs. Frontal assaults are also vulnerable to well-designed broadsiding ships that can turn to show you a fresh side whilst your front is starting to take damage/shields go down.

As for design principles, you have to note that large ships tend to have sufficient firepower to plow through any amount of defense to reach a weak point compared to smaller ships. For smaller ships, weak points can actually draw fire to shields/armor and actually be beneficial in keeping smaller/cheaper modules alive, at least against the AI.

Shield towers are also a thing and making isolated compartments/sections is very valid for large ships.
Corridors allow crew to walk faster than through anything else. Traffic causes slow downs. Crew seems more and more intelligent about their use of moving walkways if you're good at placing them.

I've also found that front-firing missiles are much more deadly. They are more predictable for PD, but they move very fast when the target is in front compared to side missiles. Side missiles are very dodgy, but they also have poor accuracy and tend to circle enemy ships and hit behind them or on the sides (which may be a viable strategy).

Atarlost

Since there's currently no way to PVP this is all very theoretical.

Against NPCs the most efficient option is to build a frontal assault design narrower with a lot of reverse engines. Very few large NPCs have enough forward thrust to catch a flying brick, and neither does your "frontal assault" example. If you can't put out an absolutely preposterous amount of missiles or large cannon rounds a shield focused flying brick can take on slower ships almost with impunity. Essentially it's the Dreadnought problem. It has an all big gun armament and steam turbines and any battleship that doesn't is now just a target. Being smaller and lightly armored is not an advantage since up to the price cap you can just throw on more and more engines. Either missiles or large cannons are the only suitable weapons. Which is actually used will depend on how effective point defense can be. I suspect it will be large cannons.

In PVP there can't be pausing. The UI elements will need to be larger and easier to click for there to be any tactics at all, but even so swarms will not be controllable. Only one can be controlled at a time and only the one being controlled can dodge cannon rounds, which will dominate capital ship combat unless it's possible to build missile volleys capable of saturating any reasonable point defense and still have enough left over to break through layered shields.

I will point out that broadside ships can mount missiles since tubes more than 135 degrees away won't fire and they can thus get off concentrated volleys every time they turn the ship. Broadside designs have trouble with speed, though, because they have to devote more space to defense and redundant weapons. They won't be good in PVP unless both players are forced to use multiple ships rather than putting all their credits in one fast brick.

Taorec

Thanks for repsonding!

Atarlost Since there's currently no way to PVP this is all very theoretical.

I try to play against myself pausing often to simulate PVP and take actions for both parties.

Atarlost If you can't put out an absolutely preposterous amount of missiles or large cannon rounds a shield focused flying brick can take on slower ships almost with impunity.

That´s what I found too. Shields and PD counter missiles pretty hard. I had a 825k missile tender fire at a 165k PD frigate (see pictures below) and the 150 missiles did very littile damage.

The cannon rounds of the large cannon are pretty slow and dodgeable. It takes ~4 to break a shield which can be recharged quite fast. Against shield heavy builds the eBolt with small cannons seemed very effective. If you have example ships feel free to post them.

Atarlost even so swarms will not be controllable
The AI does a pretty good job when right clicking the enemy. It keeps at maximum distance (150) and hovers there, burning with its ion beam. They can't be controlled individually as you said so some may die but it´s quite funny to see 30 small ion beam corvettes (50k) chipping away at a 1,6 mio dreadnought and eating it alive 🙂

Likely we will see that players will use few ships because it gets too difficult to manage a big fleet. But with control groups you could maneuver several small ships at the weak spots of dreadnoughts.

The 'bricks' would need very high rotational speed to distribute the damage of a front mounted vessel as they become quite costly having to arm and shield all four sides.

Taorec

SpaceArchitect I suspect this is because of the heavy nerf to missile weapons.

Good to know. I think atm missiles deal good hull damage but lack the power to break through shields. It´s strange to see a broadside of a battleship hammer into my shields, the universe drowning in flames and it emerges nearly unscathed 🙂

SpaceArchitect I have done this before but is it really worthwhile or effective to do so?

It does have it´s disadvantages but likely players will focus fire a section and collapse the shields. They may destroy some weapons but the armor will take any hits that follow through into the craft. I think it is worth it to protect the inside of your ship especially as I like to place power plants directly adjacent to the shield generators. The drawbacks are reduced space behind the shields (see 3. Broadside pic, I didn't armor behind the eBolts because they would stick out and cannons could clip through the shields) and a slight increase in mass&cost. So it´s a little situational.

Taorec

Updated the OP

Taorec

Thanks for your insights Ohm!

Ohm As for roles and tactics, you forgot about diagonal designs.

I would classify them as broadside ships looking at your designs.

Ohm As for design principles, you have to note that large ships tend to have sufficient firepower to plow through any amount of defense to reach a weak point compared to smaller ships.

I just started to make dreadnoughts and started to notice that it becomes very difficult to absorb for from dozens of cannons ... I haven't come up with a good counter yet apart from moving the more important bits back toward the interior.

Ohm Shield towers are also a thing

Do you mean several succesive layers of shields?

Ohm making isolated compartments/sections is very valid for large ships.

Yeah, it annoyed me that the crew kept running all over the ship so I made self contained sections.

Ohm I've also found that front-firing missiles are much more deadly.

I´ll test that some. Generally, I found missiles too costly and too weak to be worth the hassel.

Ohm

Taorec

Taorec I would classify them as broadside ships looking at your designs.

I'm on the fence on this. Because unlike broadsiding ships, they can bring both sides to bear at the same time. Meaning they can have the most firepower on target at any time of all ship types, but they lose out on firing angles and the AI can't use them properly.

Taorec Do you mean several succesive layers of shields?

Sort of. Look at the Cerberus. The Ion beams are protected by something like 4 layers of shields in total because there are "towers" on each side with multiple shields.

Taorec I´ll test that some. Generally, I found missiles too costly and too weak to be worth the hassel.

They're not the best, but in the 300k-800k value bracket, a well-designed ship can fire a rather impressive volley which can cripple an enemy at the beginning of a fight unless they have some really, really fierce PD placement at the front, which usually means lower firepower. That crippling blow can be the difference between a win or a loss and how much damage you take in the process. Not to mention the range and side-firing shenanigans you can pull off with missiles. I wouldn't dismiss them so quickly.

Taorec

Ohm they can bring both sides to bear at the same time.

That would be more like frontside ships then. But the placement of the shields is very neat to cover both sides.

Ohm Look at the Cerberus.

It looks ... interesting. I did place shields next to weapons and then a second layer behind both but it cuts into the DPS the ship can put out. I´ll have to experiment with it.

Ohm They're not the best, but in the 300k-800k value bracket, a well-designed ship can fire a rather impressive volley which can cripple an enemy at the beginning of a fight unless they have some really, really fierce PD placement at the front [...]

I desgined several missile ships for 800k. One is in the third post which fires a single volley of 156 missiles. While the PD Escort didn't destroy every missile it got about ~80% of them (for 165k$) in combination with the normal PD of ships it would practically neutralize missiles, My missile ships that shoot volley are only able to bring 16 launchers (48 missiles to battle) at that cost which are completely intercepted.

But you are right against an opponent with weak PD they can be devastating if they can´t catch up with the missile boats.

Ohm

Taorec I desgined several missile ships for 800k. One is in the third post which fires a single volley of 156 missiles. While the PD Escort didn't destroy every missile it got about ~80% of them (for 165k$) in combination with the normal PD of ships it would practically neutralize missiles, My missile ships that shoot volley are only able to bring 16 launchers (48 missiles to battle) at that cost which are completely intercepted.

Well, until we get flight formations, those PD frigates are nigh useless unless you micromanage them, not to mention that they'll evaporate if it gets shot by anything that's not missiles. The missile ship is... interesting to say the least. Now, did you test it against the PD ship while broadsiding (akin to forward-firing) or in a side-firing position? I should run my own tests, but I would imagine that side-firing would struggle a lot more.

Taorec That would be more like frontside ships then. But the placement of the shields is very neat to cover both sides.

Yeah, shields do overlap nicely and yeah they function akin to frontside ship, they just get more surface area to bear. I dunno, I'd still mention it in its own class simply because they are designed quite differently from everything else despite the fact that they can behave both as broadsiding ships or front assaults.

Taorec

Added diagonal ship type to the list.

Ohm Now, did you test it against the PD ship while broadsiding (akin to forward-firing) or in a side-firing position?

I did both hand firing two broadside of 78 missile did better as the side PD wasn't used much. Though if I moved more PD to the front it would help.

Ohm

Taorec Added diagonal ship type to the list.

I am honoured!